


the world is not enough

by aelysian



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Martine dies like the punk ass bitch she is, Mrs. and Mrs. Smith, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-21 20:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3703877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelysian/pseuds/aelysian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They meet in Paris.  It sounds like the start – or end – of some cheesy rom-com or student art house film, and later, she'll roll her eyes every time someone asks for their stupid origin story because this is how it happens</i>
</p><p>Spies/Secret Agent AU.  Which is somehow apparently different from the show.  </p><p>Birthday fic for Rain who wanted a Mr. and Mrs. Smith AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. we know when to kiss and we know when to kill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chromestorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chromestorm/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Rainface. I wanted to finish the whole thing in one go but sadly...no. I hope this is what you wanted.
> 
> Also big thanks to twit for talking it through with me and keeping me from freaking out and pointing out the iffy bits. And also for whinging with me about the insanity of a married Root and Shaw.

_I know how to hurt_  
_I know how to heal_  
_I know what to show_  
_And what to conceal_

_The World is Not Enough, Garbage_

 

They meet in Paris.  It sounds like the start – or end – of some cheesy rom-com or student art house film, and later, she'll roll her eyes every time someone asks for their stupid origin story because this is how it happens:

Sameen Shaw is tired.  There is a massive bruise forming deep in the muscles of her left shoulder and she hasn't slept in thirty-six hours at least, but the mission is complete, which means she's freshly showered and at leisure until her flight out in the morning.  It's an incognito trip, so no agency transport for her, but the delay isn't much of a hardship this time around because if there are two things she appreciates about the French it's their appreciation for brandy and unabashed use of butter. 

The onion soup - or at least, the bowl that used to contain onion soup with a thick layer of cheese - is whisked away from her place and replaced by a platter of oysters.  Oh yes. 

From the next table, a woman's voice cuts through the din of the crowded restaurant and the background noise of the agency sweeps cleaning up her mess that comes through her earpiece and is subconsciously ignored.  "You know oysters are considered an aphrodisiac."

Shaw takes in dark green silk that skims slender curves and bares the long line of a white throat that she follows to a pointed chin and a smile that suggests what's blatantly clear in dark lined eyes and only grows the longer her gaze lingers.  

"Then again," she says, glancing down in a single flutter of mascara-lengthened lashes, all coy and not at all innocent, "I usually find that kind of thing...unnecessary."

It's stupid, but she's kind of glad she went with the black dress that she _knows_ is working for her, judging by the way the other woman's gaze dips when she shifts fluidly in her seat, tilts her head back, and tips an oyster down her throat in one practiced movement.  She doesn't hesitate to meet her eyes as she sets the shell back down on the plate with a clatter.

"I'm Root."

Her smile is a challenging twist of full lips, like a cat eyeing the cream.  The brandy is hot and buttery on her tongue and the burn transfers to her bottom lip as the tip snakes out to wet the delicate skin.  There’s a magret de canard due to follow the oysters that she won’t be passing up for anyone, but Root doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. 

She pushes the platter closer to the divide between their tables like an invitation, takes another mollusk and drowns it in lemon.  Her left eyebrow arches as Root toasts her with a clink of calcified shell.  “Sameen.”

 

* * *

 

The Seine is prettier at night, when the streetlights bounce off the slow moving river in arcs and waves and illuminate its stone-walled banks and bridges worn smooth with time.  The light glows and dissipates, fairly floats in the summer air, which might be due at least in part to the drink heating their blood and skin.

Root is stumbling along like a drunken bumblebee, laughing and flushed, with curls escaping her chignon.  She's...not charming, exactly, but Shaw is just this side of too drunk to think of the right word, and if she wraps her hand around the back of Root's neck and pulls her down to bite her smile and swallow her laughter that bubbles up like champagne, that's probably the booze too. 

She bites back, teeth and lips and tongue along her neck and finding the place at the curve of her jaw, just under her ear, that makes her hands clench and wrinkle the fine silk of Root's dress, and makes her want to rip the delicate fabric.  

Shaw pushes, tugs her down a narrow side street and pushes, _shoves_ her hard enough for the impact of her head against the hard stone wall to be audible but she's not listening; her hand slides past silk and up satiny skin and the dark glitter of Root's eyes looking down at her is second only to the sound of her name escaping those lips. 

"Sameen… _Sameen_ ," she laughs breathily, descending into a throaty groan as Shaw's fingers dip into the slick heat of her.  Her hands scrabble against her shoulders, digging into bared skin that burns against hers.

She's dizzy, carried away on a rush of the particular brand of arousal that accompanies a day of not getting killed combined with whatever it is about this woman that feels like an amphetamine delivered directly into her bloodstream.  So it takes her a second to understand what's happening when Root pushes her away and follows with a hard kiss. 

"The French are very liberated," she gets out despite Shaw's attempts to monopolize her mouth, "but what I’m going to do to you?  I'd prefer not to put on a show."

"I'm not complaining."

She smirks.  "And I don't feel like sharing."

It should be a cold awakening, a jolt back to reality in a Parisian alley with a stranger who's already asking for more than she can give, and she should walk away right now and find someone else that’s a little less…just less.

Maybe that’s why she lets her take her hand and lead her through the streets of the Latin Quarter, past a receptionist who ignores them as they crash into the tiny lift, into a darkened hotel room and onto smooth sheets.  When she rips green silk from her, pushes her onto the bed and pins her down, Root smiles and she thinks that this might be all right.

It’s just one night.

 

* * *

 

_Two years later_

 

“Looking good, Indy.”

She doesn’t let her annoyance show on her face as she weaves through the busy square, the loose fabric of her skirt swirling with every step.  “Shut up, Cole.”

He groans into her earpiece, hidden by the shawl covering her head.  “Didn’t we just talk about codenames?  And why we have them?”

“Whatever.”  The stairs to the rooftop are narrow and steep, which wouldn’t ordinarily be a problem except for the disassembled M2010 hidden on her person.

“I swear I don’t know how you don’t get benched.”

“Yeah, you do,” she grins, setting up in under thirty seconds and settling into her perch.  “It’s because I’m the best.”

“The best at breaking the rules, maybe.”

“Rules are for people who don’t know what they’re doing,” she shoots back.

His laugh is warm and familiar in her ear as she flips the sight open.  The Marrakech heat is oppressive, coming from everywhere at once, but it’s the most comfortable she’s been in a week.  Here, with a rifle pressed against her cheek, swathed in sand-coloured cotton, the other half of her life feels every bit of 3600 miles away, at least until –

“How’s the wifey?”

“ _Viridian_ ,” she bites off warningly.

“Don’t worry, Indy, we’re on isolated.  What kind of partner do you think I am?”

She can hear his smirk, she swears she can.  “The annoying kind.”

“That’s me.  Seriously though, Shaw, you’ve been majorly grumpy lately.  Even for you.  Everything…okay?”

Everything is not okay, but that is so not a conversation she is having right now.  Probably never.  “It’s _fine_ , Cole.  She’s – shit, he’s here.”

“He’s early,” he notes grimly, all humour gone from his voice and she’s remembering why she likes him again.

Their mark is blond, sticking out like a sore thumb in cargo shorts and polo shirt as he takes a seat at the sidewalk café.  Ten years ago she would have thought that he doesn’t look much like an arms dealer, but she’d learned early on that bad people come in all kinds of wrapping.  She readies the shot without hesitating.

Her finger tightens on the trigger, she exhales, and –

He falls backward, off his chair, with the impact.  Blood stains his white shirt, she can see it from here, but she’s already swiveling, searching windows and rooftops for the telltale –

“Indy?”

“That wasn’t me.  There’s someone else here.”  She sees it, a flurry of movement in the window of the adjoining building.  Top floor.  The fastest way across is by rooftop, and the distance is not one that she’ll be leaping any time soon, even if she wants nothing more than to hunt down the asshole that just poached her fucking mark.

“They’ll be gone by now,” he says like he knows what she’s thinking.  He probably does.  “We need to go too.”

She’s packed up and disappearing into the hysterical crowd in less than a minute because she is a fucking professional but she is also beyond pissed and stays that way even when Cole picks her up in the van half a mile away.

“What the fuck, Cole.”  She rips the shawl off her head and tosses it in a corner, closely followed by the rest of her clothes until she’s left in her standard issue black tank and pants and a scowl to match.  “No one said there was anyone else in on this.”

He doesn’t say anything until she’s downed the bottle of icy water he tosses at her, calm as ever in the face of her fury.  “Sweeps went in.  Found this.”

This is a calling card, the paper heavy and textured between her fingers, marred only by the clean imprint of a typewriter’s hammer.  A. Lovelace.  “What the hell is this?”

“I don’t know.  But Control might.”

If anyone would know, it would be Control.  And then maybe she’d get the green light to take out whoever the hell A. Lovelace is.  Shaw settles back in her seat; she might be pissed, but she’s always had a sharp understanding of what is within her control and what is not, and until this newcomer is within reach, she’ll have to settle for waiting.

“Cole?”

“Yeah, Shaw.”

“I’m hungry.”

 

* * *

 

Her flight lands early, so the brownstone is still dark and deserted by the time she arrives home.  She’s never had a home before, and the little shiver of delight that tingles up her spine every time she steps through the door to the carefully organized and decorated space that she gets to call hers never gets old.

First things first.  She hangs her coat in the front hall closet and leaves her suitcase by the dresser.  Her fingers unclasp her necklace easily and unthread the thin platinum band that fits on her fourth finger perfectly. 

Home.  Who would have thought.

Sameen isn’t due to land for another hour, which means she has enough time to check in while making dinner.  Well, making is a bit of a misnomer for the call she makes to Club A to call in a perennial favour for delivery.  She dials the Hub next, rinsing sweet peppers in the oversized sink and pretending to be domestic.

“Hi, Daizo.”

"Home safe?”

Her knife of choice is slightly outsized for the simple task of chopping vegetables but the weight of the heavy blade in her hand keeps her from feeling like she's suffocating.  “Yup.  Except someone else almost beat us to the punch.” 

“Two ISA agents.  Indigo and Viridian, I think,” he confirms mildly, as if a semi-government sponsored agency is nothing to be bothered about.  Then again, she’s finding that what freaks Daizo out isn’t always what freaks out other people.

“Well, I left a little present behind for Team Crayola,” she says, smiling a little in remembrance.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?"

“Don’t worry, D.  Just a calling card to introduce myself properly.  It was all very civilized.  You would have liked it.” 

He giggles.  Freaking giggles.  It should be annoying – and sometimes it is – but this time, flush with another success, it makes her laugh.  The quarter million sitting in her offshore account, waiting to slowly trickle into their joint account disguised as paycheques and a couple closing bonuses, helps too.  And that's just her personal take.  “Call me when Buenos Aires comes through. And keep me posted on our other little project."

"Will do, boss."

Root watches as the call deletes itself from her phone's history before setting the device down on the granite countertop and contemplates uncorking a bottle of the Malbec chilling in the wine fridge.  Her hesitation is fleeting; she's twisting the corkscrew and opening the bottle with a gentle pop almost without thinking. 

She hasn't seen Sameen in nearly a week and she misses her, not just because she's supposed to, but because when she pictures the woman in her mind, there's this uncomfortable tugging sensation between her lungs.  What hurts is that she's slowly coming to realize that the feeling doesn't really go away, even when she's there. 

Her glass is empty once dinner arrives, and she's drained it twice more by the time she's gotten everything plated and keeping warm in the oven. 

The wine is soothing her rough edges, blurring her sharpness when Sameen comes home.  "Hi, sweetie."

A grunt is her only reply, as she listens to the soft shuffling sound of a coat sliding into a hanger, the metal clink of the hook meeting the bar, the dull thuds of shoes being kicked off in the hall.  She can picture it all, imagines that long ponytail tumbling over one shoulder and bangs falling into her eyes.

"How was your trip?" she tries again, getting out a second glass.

"Fine," comes from the foyer before she finally appears, tightening her ponytail and taking the offered glass. “Where’s Bear?”

Shit. _Shit._ “I thought we could pick him up from the kennel tomorrow. Stay in tonight, just the two of us.”

Sameen finishes her wine in two, maybe three, swallows. “I’m going to go get him.”

“But I was just about to take dinner out of the oven, and I thought we could – ” she lets herself trail off; Sameen isn’t listening because Sameen is already gone. She takes the plates out of the oven anyway, sets the table, empties the remainder of the bottle into a decanter, and sits down to wait.

 

* * *

 

The second best thing about the agency headquarters is the gym. Vast and well equipped, the only downside is that it is damn near impossible to avoid other people, particularly people as freakishly good at finding her as Cole is; if they weren’t subjected to full body scans every time they entered the building, she’d almost suspect him of having tagged her at some point.

He pops up at the head of the bench, his grin upside down. “Don’t you know that you’re supposed to get someone to spot you? Gym safety 101, Shaw.”

She replaces the bar with a grimace, sitting up and taking the towel Cole offers her before raising an eyebrow as he takes a seat at the end of the bench. “What.”

“Is everything okay, Shaw? I know you don’t like to talk about that kind of stuff, but – ”

“You’re right. I don’t.” She moves to stand, until Cole’s iron grip on her wrist stays her. “Cole.”

“You’re my partner, Shaw,” he says lowly, with a gravity in his voice that keeps her from pulling away. “I need to be able to know that whatever’s going on with you isn’t going to put either of us in danger when we’re out there.”

“And what exactly do you think is going on with me?”

“I don’t know, Sameen. But you’ve been distracted ever since – even before Marrakech. You’re first one in and last one to leave, if at all. And I know you don’t love _us_ , so I have to assume that there’s something else that keeps you here instead of at home with your lovely – ”

“ _What_ is your obsession with her?”

“With whom?” he asks with only half his usual cheek.

“You know who,” she near growls out.

“Your wife? You know that you have one, right? I’ve known you for a long time,” he says, reaching for the thin chain around her neck and lifting its burden out from under her shirt, with all the confidence of someone who knows he won’t be smacked for it. Probably. “And while I’m touched that you let me know about it – ”

“You spied on me!” she interjects, rolling her eyes at the _you think?_ written all over his face.

“I never took you for the marrying type. And I’m happy for you, Sameen, I am. But you…don’t seem to be. Happy, I mean.”

Just like that, she deflates, right there on the bench with – thank _god_ – no one else but Cole to see. She thinks that he should really move into Interrogations, or maybe it’s just friendship or some shit like that.

“She’s a computer geek,” she hears herself say. “At some high tech software company. And I’m a government assassin who goes home every night and pretends she isn’t a sociopath. What about that isn’t fucked up?”

She doesn’t wait for a response, because this is a conversation that she really doesn’t want to have. Possibly ever. This time he lets her get up – she’d break something if she had to, and maybe he knows that – and walk away.

“I’ll see you at debriefing.”

“Hey, Shaw?” he calls after her. “She’s hot though, right?”

Her answer comes in the form of a tightly knotted gym towel whipped at his head. Which is probably a yes.

 

* * *

 

“They call themselves Machina.  Been around for years, but mostly as a shadow backer.  As far as we know, they've been involved in forty-two incidents in the last five years.  They've preferred the indirect approach in the past, likely to avoid attention from other agencies."  

"Which is why _this_ ," she says, tossing the calling card onto the briefing table, "is new.  Congratulations, Indigo, someone out there likes you."

Cole doesn't laugh, but Shaw thinks that has more to do with Control's intimidation factor than her own. 

"Ada Lovelace.  Nineteenth century countess, and arguably the first computer programmer; this is the first time Machina has put a name to any of their operatives.  Apparently our friends are no longer playing in the shadows, as Marrakech made quite clear."

Control scowls down at them, arms crossed and formidable.  "If you get a chance, take them out, ladies."

"Sir, are we sure an inter-agency war -"

Her foot makes solid contact with Cole's shin but to his credit, he doesn't flinch. 

"Marrakech was not the first mission that Machina has interfered with, Viridian, and it doesn't look like it'll be the last.  Our job is to eliminate threats to the American people, and that includes _independent contractors_ that get in our way," she spits before sweeping from the room with one last stony glare.

Briefing rooms are soundproofed and unmonitored, but Cole still waits a full ninety seconds before breaking the silence. She knows, because she counts, wondering if he’s going to break his record for keeping his mouth shut. He doesn’t.

“What do you think, Indy?”

Shaw slides the calling card off the polished table, feels the indentation of each of the nine letters under her fingers, gauges the texture of the paper with sensitive fingertips, and doesn’t bother to suppress the little flutter of anticipation. “I think that this is going to be fun.”

“You would,” he says with an exaggerated sigh and a smile before getting to his feet.

“C’mon, Shaw."

He knows better than to offer her a hand or hold the door, but he also knows that his stride is 50% longer than hers and doesn’t slow in the slightest. Most of the time, she thinks she likes that about him. “Come on _where?_ ”

“The range, dummy,” he calls over his shoulder. “It’s open season on Lady Lovelace.”

Her partner is a fucking dork. He’s also right; she doesn’t really need the practice but she can’t afford to slip now.

 

* * *

 

"Daizo, what the hell happened?"  

She's pissed.  She usually has a pretty good grip on her emotions, wrapping everything in a layer of detached amusement, light but strong.  But it's hard to be detached when she just watched months of planning and preparing go to waste, disappear into the back of a horribly clichéd black van along with the half-million the contents of his pocket would have fetched. 

Root finally gets to street level, right where she lost her mark, when she spots it.  Too clean to just be litter, and too vivid to be missed.  A small square of smooth, glossy cardstock in an unmistakable shade right between blue and purple, embossed with two words:

Bite me.

Daizo – finally – responds a moment too late.  "Definitely ISA.  Not sure who, but there's no way we're getting it back now."

"Indigo," she says, more to herself than anything, tucking the card into the pocket of her dark jeans, feeling the edge of it right against her hip bone.

“How do you know? Root? How do you know it was Indigo?”

She doesn’t even try to hide her smile – no one’s looking anyway. “Because, D. She said hello.”

“What?”

“I’ll explain when you’re older,” she says, deliberately needling him as she slides her sunglasses on, plants herself on a bench, and tilts her face to the sun. “Now come and get me.”

 

* * *

 

She feels bad about it, she really does. Things with Sameen aren’t great by any stretch, and if she had the courage to be honest about it, she’d be able to admit that things with Sameen are what the average person would call on the rocks. Boulders, really, made of ice and granite and piled up like a wall she’s tired of trying to climb.

Root puts her earrings in and checks her lipstick one last time before calling out, “We’re going to be late!”

Sameen’s right heel drags ever so slightly on the hardwood floors upstairs, broadcasting her reluctance, and really it’s strange that she can know these things about her, these little things, and still feel sometimes that she’s married to a complete stranger. She catches sight of her in the foyer mirror, coming down the stairs in a familiar black dress that tugs at her with this mix of nostalgia and desire and something else altogether.

“Ready to go?”

“Just a minute,” she says, without making eye contact, before disappearing into the hall closet.

Root closes her eyes, briefly, tired already. Sometimes she wonders, just to herself, what happens on all those business trips Sameen takes. She can hardly complain; with how often she’s ‘away for work’ herself, it definitely makes it easier to not have to explain her own absences, but she does wonder. Sometimes she wonders if there’s someone else.

The sharp pain that usually accompanies the traitorous thought is as acute as ever, except maybe the guilt makes it worse.

She feels bad about it, she really does.

(There are five cards tucked into the lining of her suitcase that she can’t quite bring herself to throw away and tells herself it’s because it’s intel. Daizo, if he knew, would disagree.)

Sameen emerges in a pair of heels that puts her closer to her own height, and it’s the combination of everything swirling inside of her that finds her putting her hand on her arm. “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

“You already told her we’d go,” she points out, and Root drops it – they’ve shown up at too many neighbourly functions barely able to look at each other and she doesn’t have the energy to do it again.

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s go.”

It's a short walk, just a few doors down, and yet she can't think of a single thing to say to her.  Sameen's hand swings close to hers as she strides along, close enough to grab and hold and pretend everything's okay.  She's tempted to do it, just to see if Sameen will let her; she doesn't, and wishes they could bring Bear instead.  She sneaks glances at her, examining high cheekbones and a firmly set full mouth in starts and stops. 

"Sameen - "

It's already too late; the front door is already swinging open to spill light and music and laughter down the stairs and onto the street and Sameen is transforming into this smiling woman who makes small talk and eats hors d'oeurves from tiny plates and is completely unrecognizable from the person she thought she married. 

She's starting to think she never knew her at all.  The thought makes her stumble over the threshold, off balance and out of place, but she's a professional in the game of pretending and she forces a smile that is _completely_ natural and greets her hostess.

Nadya is touchy-feely, even for Root, and disentangling herself is a ten minute challenge in avoiding wandering hands and indelicate questions. The flute of sparkling rosé she nabs upon her escape isn’t even close to a sufficient reward for her efforts, though the chocolate-dipped strawberries in the centre of the spread might come close. At least the woman knows how to feed people.

There’s a significant dent in the bowl’s contents that tells her Sameen has definitely already passed through.

She looks for her without realizing that's what she's doing, around acquaintances and neighbours, eyes skipping over strangers before settling on her, talking to a man tall enough to seem compelled to bend slightly to descend to less lofty heights. He's dark – and married, she notes, disgusted with herself for taking anything beyond a perfunctory notice – and they look good together. Like a pair.

(It’s probably about work, she tells herself, even as she petulantly wonders what exactly is so fascinating about high-end security systems that he needs to hang on her every word.)

Suddenly desperate for something other than _pink_ wine, Root wanders into the kitchen that takes up the entire back section of the ground floor.  It takes a little (completely shameless) digging to uncover, but she locates a bottle of Courvoisier behind the most random and varied assortment of olive oil she’s ever seen in her life.

She leans on the island countertop, picks at a tray of cheese and crackers, and contemplates the fact that she’s the least social person at a party that includes Sameen Shaw. At least the kitchen seems to be a safe zone.

The thought has barely taken shape in her head when she hears the approaching sound of heels clicking on porcelain tile. Who the fuck even insists on guests keeping their shoes _on_ , anyway? Fucking Nadya.

“You going to share that or what?”

Sameen appears at the short edge of the counter and shrinks a second later to the sound of her shoes being kicked off. She’s pulling the bottle from her before Root realizes that her fingers are still wrapped around its neck.

The _sorry_ dies on her lips, drowned in the bottom of her glass.

Maybe it’s the cognac, or the way Sameen looks at her from under those lashes as she sips, or the thought of the elusive Indigo that flits through her head at just the right (wrong) moment. Root moves slowly, or just thinks she does, reaching across the granite to catch her bottom lip between her own.

Sameen responds, fleetingly, the slightest returning pressure before she’s pulling back, pulling away. She can’t catch her eyes now. “We should go home.”

Root watches as she steps back into her shoes, wondering if she’ll leave her here if she doesn’t follow and knows she doesn’t want to find out.

“Okay.”

 

* * *

 

Shaw leaves her hair loose and slightly damp, cool on her bare shoulders as she pads out of the bathroom. Bear looks up from his bed, dragged in from the den in a blatant protest of being left alone all evening.

“Hey. Did you miss me?” She rubs the soft spot behind his ear, smiling as his head tilts into her hand. He settles down for the night with a soft _whuff_ , resting his head on his paws.

A final pat and she turns to her own bed. Root is already sleeping, tucked in on her side. She sucks in a breath and shuts the light off, tugging off her sweatpants and tossing them on the end of the bed before sliding between the sheets. Exhaling slowly, quietly, she flips her hair over the back of her pillow before turning to stare at the darkness, at Root’s back.

The racerback she sleeps in accentuates the line of her shoulders, the bend of her spine, and she can only just remember a time when that same stretch of skin would be bared to her and wonders when that changed.

She thinks about saying something, like _hey, are you awake?_ or _I’m sorry_. For earlier. For everything. For being the way she is. She could cross the distance, the gap of cotton and duvet, and touch her; she could press her hand against her skin, stretch her fingers across her ribcage and tuck her into the curve of her body the way she’s just remembering she likes.

Shaw doesn’t do any of those things. She rolls over to her other side and shuts her eyes and waits for morning to come. There’ll be another flight, another city, and another mission and with any luck, she won’t have to think about anything else for a while.


	2. if we can't have it all then nobody will

_People like us_  
_Know how to survive_  
_There's no point in living_  
_If you can't feel alive_

_The World is Not Enough, Garbage_

 

 

 _She might be a teeny bit addicted, but in her defence, it's kind of really hard not to be.  Not when her poison of choice keeps looking at her like_ that _._

_The lightness of her tone would never have given it away (she thinks) but she hesitated for a week – in other words, an eternity – before calling when she returned to New York.  Nervousness fluttering in her ribcage like palpitations, heat rising to her cheeks with every ring until she picks up.  It starts with "how did you get this number" and ends in dinner at Club A the next night._

_There's no way she'd ever manage to get Sameen to admit it, not that she really wants to try, but she's not as completely indifferent to her increasingly overt flirtation as she'd like to think.  She's the kind of woman who'd shut her up with a fist first, Root thinks, and she supposes it's a compliment that she chooses her lips instead.  She knows, with unreasonable certainty, that Sameen will never raise a hand to her against her will, but it's just as well that her will is rather broad in its tastes._

_They both travel so much, so far and so frequently, that sometimes the physical reminder of her is a welcome brand on her skin.  (She wants, without quite knowing how or why, to be hers, and hides the question in the sound of her sighs.)_

_Sometimes she thinks about telling her, because she thinks Sameen would like it, be good at it, and because she wants to be more than just a talented computer programmer in her eyes.  She wants a lot of things and she's both terrified and desperate for her to know._

_Now is one of those times, when she can feel the words on her tongue, trace the shape of them against her teeth.  The breeze coming through the open window chills her rapidly cooling skin but she’s too lazy, too boneless to pull the sheet up to cover herself. Then Sameen slips back into bed, stretching like a cat before tugging her roughly, thoughtlessly against the bends of her body. Her arm lands heavily on her side, her fingers slotted between ribs with her thumb tucked against the slight curve of her breast._

_A shiver ripples through her before she relaxes into Sameen, thankful beyond belief that she can’t see the smile that feels completely ridiculous on her face._

_It’s that stupid fucking smile that ruins it, that breaks the seal of her lips and the words tumble out irretrievably. Sameen stills against her, so completely that she can only feel the echoing thud of her heart against her back, out of sync with her own so it feels like it’s racing._

_Love is fucking stupid and she’s already saying goodbye in her head and schooling her face into something that might pass for nonchalant in any other circumstance. She doesn’t dare breathe._

_This is what she gets for trying to be normal._

_Let’s get married, is what happens instead, whisper soft and questioning and so tentative that it doesn’t sound like Sameen at all but they’re both new at this and Root is completely, completely hooked._

_She twines her fingers with hers and squeezes and the way Sameen kisses her makes her think that she might not be the only one._

 

* * *

 

“ – unlike Indigo, who can’t seem to locate let alone eliminate a single private agent. Well done, Crimson.”

She says it just to spite her, Shaw knows, because Control doesn’t actually do praise, and the cut eye she gives her on the way out confirms it. Whatever. She slouches in her ergonomic chair and ignores Grice’s little smirk.

“Has Research come back on the laptop?” she asks Cole on her right.

“A few more hours,” he says briefly, far from his usual effusiveness in mixed company, somber and serious. “Where’s your blonder half, Grice?”

“Scarlet’s in medical. Had a bit of a mishap in Hong Kong. So, Indigo,” he grins. “Heard you’ve got a little thing going with a solo.”

“Shut up, Crimson.”  She has zero intention of discussing any of this shit with or in front of him.  It's enough that the techs and sweeps know about it, if the averted eyes and low chattering that bookend her presence are anything to go by. 

"Just saying," and if she wasn't in such a foul mood, she might recognize the genuine concern that underpins the teasing tone.  "A maverick out there managing to beat one of us half the time?  The upper ups aren't happy about this."

"You think?" she grouses, fully ignoring the complete accuracy of her current failure rate where Machina is concerned.  Jesus. 

"There's some talk of getting Scar and I involved," he says carefully, meeting her eyes deliberately so she'll understand.  "Just thought you should know."

Shaw can't manage anything beyond an acknowledging nod, and both men seem to understand.  "Go get 'em," he tells them with his eyes on just her, before leaving them alone in the room. 

"Shaw?"  Cole says her name so delicately that she thinks she might lose it on him. 

"Lovelace is _mine_." It’s absurd, the ferocity in her tone that startles even herself but she refuses to be apologetic about it. (In some ways, a lot of ways, this is the only thing she has left and she’s not about to relinquish control of it now.)

“ _I_ know it, Indy, but things aren’t exactly going well. She’s good at this, good at staying hidden. Better than any of us, probably.”

He’s right, she knows that. Lovelace is a ghost, ephemeral and elusive, and after months of chasing all she has are a handful of cards, a laptop that probably won’t get them anywhere given the technological expertise that is Machina’s hallmark, and a description that consists of _brunette_ and _skinny_.

She thinks about it, at the back of her mind, all of the time, and when she dreams she sees shadowy figures at the corners of her vision, hazy and impossible to catch no matter how fast she runs. It’s consuming her, haunting her, and she can’t deny that there’s a cost.

 

* * *

 

“I asked you for _one thing_ , Sameen. You _know_ how important my work is to me. All I ask is that you don’t _fuck with it._ ” She isn’t screaming, is hardly even raising her voice, but the effort of self-restraint makes her words brittle and sharp.

“It was one laptop, Root. You have a dozen. I didn’t think it was a big deal.” Shaw pulls the brush through her hair viciously, welcoming the pain and letting it focus her. “If it’s so important, why did you even leave it here?”

"I _live_ here, Sameen."

"Doesn't seem like it," she mutters half under her breath, knowing that it's a bad idea even as she says it.  She tightens her hair elastic and avoids eye contact.

"What is _that_  supposed to mean?"

It's weird, how she gets calmer the more upset Root becomes.  Maybe this is what it feels like to give up.  "Let's face it, Root.  We hardly see each other, we can't talk without fighting, we haven't had sex in months...maybe it's time we call this for what it is."

Root goes completely still at the corner of her eye, and she doesn't dare look directly at her as she sweeps the sparse toiletries scattered across her side of the dresser into a small bag.  Eyeliner, moisturizer, lip balm.  It all gets tossed into an inconspicuous carry on bag that's more for show than anything else.

"What the – are you _leaving?_ "

"I have a work trip.  Cleveland.  I told you."  She's not actually sure she'd mentioned it, but considering that Cleveland is actually Cairo, it's not like it really matters.  Shaw slings her bag into her shoulder and turns away.

Root follows, nearly trembling with what Shaw assumes is rage and that makes her feel even less again.  "Are you fucking _kidding_ me? Sameen, you can’t just say something like that to me and run away!”

Shaw doesn’t hurry down the stairs but she doesn’t slow, relentlessly pushing forward. She can’t be here any longer than she has to be; car keys looped around a finger, she’ll leave it at the agency and meet Cole there.

“Sameen!” She grabs for her then, long fingers catching her sleeve, hanging on to her tenuously – she could pull away, rip herself from her grasp without any effort at all. ( _Are you coming back?_ is balanced on the tip of Root’s tongue and if Shaw suspects, she doesn’t show it.)

The way she raises her eyes, slowly, steadily to meet hers – Root’s hand falls away, her lips press together in an uneven line. “I’ll see you later,” Shaw says, like it’s nothing, and tries not to feel anything at all as the front door closes between them.

Root watches the Mini pull away from the curb, and shuts off the hall light, knowing her silhouette is visible from the street. Not that Sameen is looking anyway, but she really hates their neighbours. The second last stair catches her, and she tucks her knees into her chest, folding into herself in the dark. She’s not sure what just happened and she’s too afraid to think about it.

A vibrating phone saves her; the rhythmic low buzz leads her to the kitchen and Sameen’s forgotten cell. She picks up on impulse: “Hello?”

“Shaw?”

“No, she – she’s not here,” she catches herself.

“Is this Root?”

“Who _is_ this?” She searches her scattered mind, trying to place his voice and failing.

“I’m Cole. I work with Sameen. Do you think you could give her a message?”

She can’t breathe.

 

* * *

 

The wind on the tarmac is fucking ridiculous and her ponytail is whipping her in the face. Her own hair is abusing her and if she had a knife handy she might almost cut it off. As it is, she adjusts the weight of her pack, tucking her hair under the strap, before striding off in the direction of the private terminal. The weather is shit but so is her mood and the thunder growling threateningly overhead is soothing.

Cole catches up inside the hangar as she’s tossing her shit in the truck. “Shaw.”

“I’m driving.”

“Shaw.”

" _What?_ "

"There's been a soft breach at the agency."

She curses under her breath, accelerating through a sharp turn.  "What did they get?"

"Don't know.  Comms are being restricted until the techs figure out how extensive it is."  With the way she's driving, it's a good thing Cole is the size he is; anyone smaller would be tossed around in their seat.

"And how do you know about it?"

"I have my ways," he grins even as she tears into the underground garage in record time. 

"By which you mean you're hooking up with that redhead techie again," she points out, hopping out of the truck. 

"I don't kiss and tell, Shaw."

She snorts at that but takes the USP he hands her.  They take the service lift to the Research level, where she expects pandemonium to have broken loose, dozens of geeks running around spewing technobabble and cowering under the watchful eyes of the cameras they installed that undoubtedly feed directly to Control.  She doesn't find any of that. 

It's a little untidy, evidence of prior chaos still fresh if rapidly disappearing, but everyone is at their stations and no one is screaming or crying or otherwise freaking out.  The calm is unnerving, and she stands there looking out at them while Cole bounds down the steps to the pen, heading directly to a distinctly gingery analyst. 

"Shaw."

She hasn't seen him in months, but his voice isn't one she's prone to forget.  "Hersh.  Is it over?  What happened?"

"We had a breach," he says, leaning heavily against the railing.  His suit is wrinkled and he's gotten a little greyer and she wonders for the first time what the life expectancy is for someone like them.  "Small, very small, but very targeted.  Specific."

"What did they get?"  Active missions would be the worst, deep cover agents and critical targets.  Even ancient history could be dangerous, and the clean-up job would be immense. 

"We don't have the details yet; the techs are still investigating but it looks like they were searching for something in particular."  The look he gives her makes it clear that she isn't going to like what he's going to say next.  "The intrusion was looking for anything to do with Indigo."

Her stare hardens, bores into him. “What are you saying?”

“Someone is looking for you, Shaw. And not just you as Indigo. You as _you_. So I have to ask…who have you pissed off lately?”

She isn’t listening anymore, because her mind has already raced ahead to the finish line. Her name is waiting for her there, her face and her identity and her address and _Root_. She hasn’t let herself think about her in the week since she left, has refused to remember what she almost said, or recall the shape of her standing at the door.

It feels like someone has crushed her ribs and pierced her lungs and she doesn’t remember getting into the lift or finding her car or leaving the agency behind her. Cole calls, again and again, this incessant beeping in her ear until she turns her earpiece off. She can’t listen to him or anyone right now, because there’s only one person who would be looking for her and there isn’t anyone she can afford to lose.

Fear floods her bloodstream, propels her out of the car and up the steps and bursting through her front door.

“Root?”

 

* * *

 

“For the hundredth time, we didn’t _need_ Cairo, Daizo, it’ll be fine.” Root stretches in her office chair, rolling her neck in a half-hearted effort to alleviate the knotted muscles. “I’m just…taking a break, okay? Just from the side stuff. I need some time.”

Her knees ache as she pushes back from her cluttered desk. She needs more than a break; she needs sleep and the long hours of unconsciousness she’s managed after anaesthetizing don’t count at all.

“How is everything else going?” she asks just to change topics, wandering down into the kitchen.  Truth be told, she’s a little bit bored but she also can’t bring herself to leave the house to do anything more than walk Bear. 

They’ve never been particularly close, but he gives her these eyes as he slinks about the house like the world is ending and they’ve kind of bonded in their shared solitude.  He’s taken to following her around as if he thinks she’ll lead him to Sameen.  Poor idiot. 

"I think we're close," Daizo confirms with enough energy for them both, which is just as well.  "Some promising hits in the New York area."

"Still nothing conclusive about the actual location?"

"Nothing."

She peers into the fridge idly, unenthused by its contents.  "I'll take a look at it today.  Threat levels?"

"Under the radar as usual, though there's been a little chatter coming out of Decima.  I think they're picking up on the ISA's...frustration."

There is nothing she wants to eat and she settles for moving things around, checking expiry dates and feeling the urge to shoot something. And then she sees it, a tiny button set flush into the side, just above the milk. 

In her ear, Daizo clears his throat in this polite sound intended to get her attention.  "Root, about the ISA, I think you should know that I tried something, just because you've been so preoccupied with it so I thought -"

The shadow of its edge is almost imperceptible, nearly invisible to the eye and barely grazing her fingertips; the button depresses under the pressure of a hard jab of her index and the median between the fridge and freezer pops open.  A narrow rack slides out automatically, displaying an envy-inspiring collection of compact arms.  What the unholy fuck.

"Daizo, I'm going to have to call you later."  She shuts off her earpiece without giving him a second thought.  

Root runs her hands over the weaponry wonderingly.  She'd always known that Sameen was a firearm enthusiast, but the arsenal _hidden in their fridge_ is something new.  Maybe it's just a matter of her bringing her work home, adding a little something to the freaking fortress that anyone would expect a premier security firm's VP to be.  Maybe it's another one of a thousand secrets that Sameen keeps from her and who knows what else is hidden inside their home. 

She's struck with the sudden urge to tear it all apart and find them all.  And then her fingers catch on something tucked against the edge of the tray and maybe it's something else entirely.  She knows what it is a nanosecond before she sees it, before they slip from her fingers and fall and her words are scattered on the kitchen floor. 

 _Did you miss me?_ and _Come here often?_ and _I left you a present_ and a dozen others laughing at her from her feet. The paper is a little worn and soft, cool against her skin as she bends to pick them up. It takes a few tries, because her hands don’t seem to be working.

Root has always been smart, always a little sharper than everyone else around her; she’s made a living on that alone, so it’s not like she doesn’t understand what this means. (The floor is like ice through the thin layer of her clothes and she can feel the thrum of her pulse against every inch of her body but she can’t tell if she’s breathing or not and what will happen if there’s no oxygen left and she can’t _think_.)

Sameen has Lovelace’s tokens, _her_ cards that she left like breadcrumbs, like a game she wasn’t supposed to play but couldn’t resist, and Sameen is keeping guns in their fridge and Sameen is a _liar_.

She’s not sure how long she’s been sitting there, because her mind is racing but her body feels like it’s slowing, and there’s something that feels like a sob trapped inside her chest and it might break her apart because Sameen is a liar, she’s been a liar this whole time and she can’t even really be mad because she’s a fucking liar too.

“God.” The word escapes her lips and evaporates in the empty air like a prayer, like a lie because she doesn’t really believe. Even now, she can’t stop. It’s easier if she closes her eyes, rests against the cabinet, and lets the chill of the open fridge waft over her, keeping her cold and rigid and in one piece.

She tries another: “Indigo.” A laugh threatens to break free which isn’t the right response either. She stays stubbornly, indelibly _Sameen_ in her head but maybe she just needs time to get used to it. Used to the idea that the last two years of her life have been a lie, bigger and more convoluted than she knew, and the thought crosses her mind that she’ll never have to make up stories about _programmers_ and _business contacts_ ever again.

There are a lot of things she’ll never have to do again because she knows Sameen better now than she ever did before: liars always do, and she might not see the whole of the game just yet, but she is damn sure going to win because _no one_ fucks with her and walks away.

No one’s going to walk away, period.

It takes a little time, but she picks herself up, cleans herself up and cleans out the fridge while she’s at it. Her house needs to be in perfect condition because something tells her that Sameen is coming home today and she has tried so hard to be a good wife for so long now.

Root gathers herself and lays out the playing cards on the dining table, a trail of bodies and cities and intrigue and lies that Sameen won’t miss, takes a seat and waits.

 

* * *

 

"Hi, sweetie."

Shaw kicks the front door closed and punches in the security activation code; if there's anyone else but them already in the house, they sure as hell aren't getting out.  "Where are you?"

"In here."

She hasn't let go of the USP since Cole handed it to her, and she's not about to loosen her grip now. The living room is empty and silent. “Root?”

This time, there’s no response and she’s starting to think that maybe she imagined it, that Root isn’t here at all, and she’s not sure if she should be relieved or not.  Her gun hand lowers to her side and that's when she sees it, carefully arranged across the surface of the dining table in white and blue, one following the other in perfect order, her infidelity laid out like a storyboard.  Except it isn't just hers, is it?   _Root_  is–

Unconsciously, she reaches for one, until a bullet buries itself in the dark wood less than an inch from her hand.  She calculates the trajectory on instinct, turns and aims without thinking.  The barrel levels with Root's centre mass, point blank, but her finger hesitates on the trigger.  "Root, you –"

"Hi, _Indy_ ," she smirks, and the second's indecision costs her a clean shot because Root ducks into the hallway before her finger can even twitch. 

That fucking bitch.  Shaw understands now, finishes the thought as she lines the wall with bullets.  The rounds aren't sufficient to clear the insulation, but it's satisfying. She clears the corner and yanks the fridge door open, ignoring the unlatched compartment that will undoubtedly be empty, and reaches for the small switch at the back of the fridge.

The backing slides open, providing access to a pair of Compacts and half a dozen small explosives. She doubts that Root – _Lovelace_ , she tells herself firmly, because she knows _nothing_ about the other woman inside this house, nothing true anyway – would have found all her caches.

Shaw edges around the corner, mindful of her blind spots, but any tactical advantage of home ground is clearly negated because a round finds the doorframe she’s standing in. “You fucking missed!”

“Just warming up, honey,” comes her voice from upstairs and what Shaw wouldn’t give for a rocket launcher right now because she is going to fucking shoot her. This isn’t what she expected, not at all, but she’s transforming fear and worry into this cold burn of absolute rage because she _hates_ being lied to.

“Only amateurs need to warm up,” she retorts, scoping out the landing.

“You could always come up here and show me how it’s done.”

Shaw stills halfway up the stairs – it’s a dangerous position to be in, but – “Are you fucking _flirting_ with me?”

“I think we’re done with that, don’t you?”

They sure are; she places her in the second bedroom, activates a charge with flick of her thumb and throws it into the open doorway. The explosion is small and controlled, designed to provide cover and minimize collateral damage and she’s always hated everything about the guest room anyway.

Smoke distorts her vision as she approaches, finger on the trigger because nothing has ever, ever been easy when it comes to her. She senses movement rather than sees it and fires haphazardly, desperately because her eyes are stinging and _this_ is what she knows.

“Still breathing,” Root calls from the next room over and Shaw is seriously regretting the open floor plan.

Not for fucking long, she thinks. And then she hears it, the sound of a round being chambered and she has enough time to realize that Root has found the FABARM, to fucking _move_ before she starts blowing craters in the dry wall. She’s faster than her reload time, keeping just ahead of the explosive shots that chase her until she throws herself down the staircase and Root takes out half the banister.

(She catches sight of her for the first time, properly, as she’s tumbling down the steps and looking for a shot – _any_ shot – and some distant part of her brain thinks it’s strange that Root still looks the same as she remembers.)

Shaw lands on her back and rolls to her feet before taking cover, listening intently for any sign of movement from the second floor. She’s breathing more heavily than she should be, and she can feel her pulse throbbing in her neck and the textured grip of her Compact is digging into her palm – she wants the shot, just one clean shot, and then this will be over. (She’s not even sure, really, what _this_ is, just that she’s been played and no one plays her and gets to live.)

There’s the sound of breaking glass at the back of the house and too late, she remembers the fire escape.

 

* * *

 

She keeps missing because she keeps hesitating and her hesitation and everything it means is pissing her off.  The element of surprise is long gone, but she doesn't regret a thing; she'd watched Indigo find her homecoming gift, seen the tension in her shoulders as she realized she'd been found out, and let her have a warning shot anyway. 

Two, actually.  (Well, one and a half.)  It's better to prolong it anyway, she thinks, because after two _years_  surely she deserves a little payback and if she destroys the house in the process, that's just one thing less to dispose of later. 

If any of their neighbours have particularly keen night vision, they might see her creeping down the fire escape, slightly singed and shotgun in hand and she wonders if they would even flinch.  Maybe.  Maybe they'd call the police or something else equally useless. 

Root smashes in a single pane of glass in the back door, just above the lock, as quietly as possible, moving fast because there's no way Indigo didn't hear.  She's not wrong – she just misses getting caught in a flurry of gunfire that she counts silently from behind the study's sofa. 

When it stops, she pulls the shotgun over the back of the sofa and fires until her cover is near obliterated, until the FABARM is depleted and she's left with a P99 and precious little else.  She eyes the open doorway to the library, a mere ten feet away, which might be just enough.  For what, she's not sure just yet.

Her chest is heaving and she can feel a bead of sweat roll down the back of her neck as she licks her lips.  She can do this, she thinks, tightening her sweaty grip on the P99.  The movement makes her aware of a stinging pain in her shoulder; her hand comes away bloody and it turns out that she didn't completely miss. 

"Guess I should have seen this coming, huh?" she hears herself ask, because her lungs are burning which might be the smoke inhalation or the hard little knot she’s been swallowing against all day, and listens to Indigo’s feet stop mid-crunch through broken everything. “We were always going to end up right here.”

“Where else?” she says and it rips a laugh from Root’s throat and tastes like blood.

“You’re right.” Fuck the library and the house and the last two years, fuck making it out of here, and fuck her lying bitch of a wife for making her believe at all. “Silly me.”

She barely bothers with covering fire, but the few stray bullets are enough that she doesn’t feel a response ripping into her as she launches herself over the sofa and tackles Indigo in what has to be one of her worst moves to date. What she absolutely lacks in technique she makes up for in effectiveness; her gun goes skittering into the hall and if Indigo knocks the P99 from her hand, she’s already gotten hold of one of those ornamental vases and smashes it against her head.

The retaliating fist to the jaw is blinding and she staggers for half a second but Root is long beyond actually feeling much of anything anymore so if it hurts when she gets shoved against – and through – the glass cabinet door, it’s just her body being disobedient.

Real pain is losing her mind, and her mind has always been everything, but she doesn’t recognize the sounds she’s making as she pushes back, clawing and tearing into the other woman, the other _agent_. Her hands are full of bookends and keepsakes and the letter opener from the toppled desk that open a line of blood across Indigo’s cheek and it’s somehow amazing that she bleeds at all.

“You fucking bitch,” someone snarls and it might be her and it might not.

She finds the base of a table lamp against her hand the next time Indigo has her on the ground, her boot colliding with the soft vulnerability of her belly with bruising force – over and over and over and she refuses to make a sound now – until she half-swings, half-throws the broken lamp into her and finds the strength to sweep her legs out from under her.

Root pins her with her knees and hips and is just finding her throat with her fingers and nails when she tosses her off like a rag doll and really, she’s always known that she would never win against Indigo like this.

She’s lying on the floor, propped up against the disaster of her life, with her lost P99 in her dominant hand when Indigo comes back in a second, minute, lifetime later with a USP Compact to match. The line of the gun flows into her arm and it doesn’t waver at all.

“Well aren’t we a fucking pair?” she says, as she gets to her feet even though everything, _everything_ hurts because there’s no way she’s going to do this any other way.

“Why did you do it?”

It’s not what she expects, exactly, but when has she ever been anything anyone ever expected and she’s Indigo and Sameen and Root can’t keep any of it straight anymore; she’s glaring at her in a way that makes her think of Paris and many, many morning afters and the tiny window in her life when she was something close to happy.

“I don’t know what you mean.” She does and she doesn’t, but neither of them are backing down.

“Root.”

She lifts her attention from the gun aimed forty-five degrees and three inches from her sternum to meet her eyes and opens her mouth to wish to a god she doesn't believe in that she wouldn't use that name. 

"Don't," is all that comes out instead. 

 

* * *

 

It's hard, harder than she ever could have expected to look at her and see Lovelace.  She's imagined it a hundred times, fantasized about what it would be like to have the bane of her fucking existence in the sights of her weapon, even to pull the trigger and end it all in a dozen different ways in dozen different cities, but she never pictured this. 

Shaw takes a step forward, closer than point blank now, close enough for gunpowder burns if she fired now, for the damage to be irrevocably ugly and violent and fatal.  Closer still, and Root arches slightly to compensate for their height difference in what Shaw recognizes as instinct, until she's pressing the nose of the Compact in between ribs three and four and can feel the answering press of gunmetal just under her breast.  This close, and she can feel it tremble. 

It's instinct that makes Root bend into her and instinct that brings her mouth crashing into hers, hard and painful and exactly what she needed.  She needs to punish her, to punish them both for being foolish enough to fall for this in the first place and for being stupid enough to not get out again.  It's a battle already lost because Root feels good in a way that is painfully simple and impossibly rare in a slide of tongues and teeth, as she hears/feels the P99 fall away and be replaced by slender insistent fingers tugging at the hem of her tank.

The Compact hits the floor a second later, and Root takes that as her cue somehow to push back against her, digging into shoulders and under collarbones to shove her into the hall, hard enough that she collides with the opposite wall with a solid thud.  

She's on her in a heartbeat, her teeth on her neck and a hand sliding into the cup of her bra and the other scrabbling at the her pants button and it’s all so much at once and not enough and all she can think is that _she wants this_.

She wants this so badly, (Root’s hand is scraping past her zipper and pushing into her jeans and she’s pretty sure she knows), and she’s touching her, stroking her like she knows everything about her body, and Shaw _feels_ something in her chest and her head and behind her eyes that’s threatening to break her open.

It’s fucking terrifying and she wants to push her off, away from her so she can have a chance of thinking clearly, but Root is mouthing her name against her skin like it’s a secret and she’s making this noise that would be embarrassing if she had enough brain capacity leftover to feel anything other than _this_.

She wants and wants and _wants_ and somewhere between the wall and the floor and the overturned sofa, between skin and sweat and sex, she maybe realizes that what she wants might be her.

 

* * *

 

Everything hurts and Root thinks she might be lying on the remains of their sofa cushions but she doesn’t even try to wipe the stupid smile from her idiot face. Sameen is sprawled half on top of her which makes it a little hard to breathe with decidedly bruised ribs but she thinks it’s worth it because she doesn’t have answers but she does have a stubborn little flicker of hope that this might not have to end with one of them dead.

There’s something pressing against her breastbone; she tries shifting without actually moving too much but Sameen lifts her head anyway before rolling onto her side. (Her breath comes a little easier now, but that doesn’t mean she likes it.)  _Something_ is apparently the platinum band hanging around her neck and Root watches as it slides along its chain to rest just below her shoulder.  Hers is still resting against her knuckle; she’d forgotten to take it off.

“Sameen?” her voice is scratchy and smaller than she’d like it to be.

Shaw hums a little in her throat which experience tells her is all the encouragement she’s going to get.

“Why did you marry me?” Root asks the ceiling, afraid to look anywhere else and disgusted with herself for even asking. But she needs to know what’s real and what isn’t if she’s going to find a way out of this and she can make sense and excuses and reasons for everything but this, even if it hurts.

Shaw shifts, pressing against her and tucking her chin into the dip in her shoulder (and it’s so not what Root expects that she doesn’t dare move); her breathing changes, deepens, before escaping in a heavy sigh. “I thought it was what you wanted.”

Before she can even begin to process what _that_ means, someone’s pounding on their front door, too loud and too repetitive to be any of their neighbours and too polite to be the police.

Shaw groans into her shoulder before getting up, leaving Root to watch as she scrambles to find clothes – either of their clothes, _any_ clothes – before answering the door. Not that they’re in any shape to be entertaining; they did a fairly good job of destroying the house and she’s half-naked under what she thinks is a curtain and she’s still not entirely sure if they’re going to go back to kicking the shit out of each other or if she even wants to. (A teeny part of her completely does.)

If things go that way, she’d prefer to do it with a modicum of dignity, Root decides, scouting around for her pants. And shirt. Her bra might be a lost cause.

She thinks she might look semi-presentable when she wanders into the front hall and interrupts what looks like an intense exchange with the man standing on the wrong side of the closed door.

He’s stepping forward, grinning at her like they’ve met, like it’s normal to barge into people’s homes in the middle of the night, before Root can ask what’s going on.  “You must be Root.  I’m Cole.  We talked on the phone."

"You _what."_

She really, really wants a gun, but settles for taking the hand he offers her instead.  "Viridian, I assume."

"Lady Lovelace," he returns smoothly, lifting her hand to press his lips to her knuckles in a gesture that almost makes her forget that he might be here to put her down.  "You sure know how to pick 'em, Shaw."

"Why the fuck are you in my house, Cole?"

He sobers immediately, dropping her hand and the look he gives her before returning his attention to Sameen hints at what's coming and she _really_  needs to find a weapon because vulnerability isn't her thing at all.  

"You've been burned, Indy.  The agency knows.  About her," he says gently, nodding slightly in Root's direction.  "And they're not too thrilled about you shacking up with the competition."

Fuck.   _Fuck._  Shaw knows exactly what this means, what's going to happen; she's not exactly the first agent to be burned but it's definitely the first time she's appreciated how arbitrary the label is.  A traitor, a _compromised_ asset – hook up with an agent from the wrong team and that's it, you're dead.  

“Sameen?”  Root is looking at her with eyes that are wide with knowing what’s coming next.  There isn’t fear there, just a question that Shaw just found the answer to; she recognizes her now.  But the words refuse to come and Cole, as he always does, saves her ass without blinking. 

"Control will be sending agents to eliminate you both.  Which means that we need to get the hell out of here."

It's enough to snap her out of it; it's a mission now and she knows how to handle those so much better than whatever she was about to find herself in before Cole showed up.  "We round up whatever firepower we have here and then we go.  Five minutes."

Root nods slightly.  "I put Bear in the walk-in closet," she says, avoiding her eyes, before turning on her heel in the direction of the library.

She doesn't watch her go, forcing herself to lead Cole up the heavily damaged staircase instead.  "Bathroom, behind the medicine cabinet."

He takes her lead without question, but she can feel his eyes on her as she continues through to the bedroom. Bear just about loses his mind when she opens the door, and Shaw gives herself a few seconds to rub his neck reassuringly before pushing aside the hangers to reach the false wall at the back of the closet. She’s halfway through clearing the compartment when Cole finds her; Bear tenses beside her until she touches his head.

“So I take it that ‘honey, I’m a government assassin’ didn’t go over well?”

At this point, she can barely be bothered to throw a glare at him. “She already knew.”

“Ah. Guess the missus got what she was looking for, then.” He watches her non-reaction carefully, years of experience telling him what to look for. “You didn’t think she knew the whole time, did you?”

“Cole.”

“Just saying. Why break into the ISA network for info on someone you live with?”

Shaw zips the duffel bag closed with more force than the plastic zip really needs. “She took the first shot,” she says and instantly feels childish and avoids his gaze.

“Well, yeah, Indy. She probably thought you were going to kill her. Weren’t you?”

She pushes past him, because there isn’t much time and this isn’t a conversation she wants to have. Ever. He doesn’t try to stop her but he doesn’t just let her go either. “Shaw. Control isn’t sending a team. She sent your notice to Decima.”

 

* * *

 

“Root, where have you _been?_ I’ve been calling and messaging and I tried pinging your – ”

“D, I need you to listen carefully. The ISA knows about me and about – ” she hesitates, wondering how much he really knows, but he makes the decision for her.

“Indigo,” he finishes. “She’s Indigo, isn’t she?”

Dread settles like lead in her stomach. “D, what did you do?”

“I might have hacked the ISA. Just a little bit.”

Root sucks in a breath through her teeth and tries to remember that it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway; she’d already made up her mind before Sameen ever stepped through the door. “They burned her, D. I’m going to try to get us to the Hub, but I need you to stay put and _don’t do anything stupid_.”

“Okay, boss. Be careful.”

She ends the call at the same time she hears the sound of a vehicle – no, two, she counts – coming to a stop a few doors down. Tucking another clip into her back pocket, Root skirts around the debris littering the hall to catch a glimpse of black modified SUVs. Shit.

“Sameen!” she calls up the stairs. “We have company!”

 

* * *

 

It’s faster, somehow, when they’re fighting with other people. More ruthless, maybe, or it could just be the adrenaline, or the extra help. Root’s still not completely sure of Viridian’s motivations, but he doesn’t seem particularly inclined to shoot her next, which is enough for now – Decima, on the other hand, is rather hell-bent on exercising her mortality.

Hand-to-hand has never been – and probably never will be – her strong suit. She’s a mastermind with enough disregard for the rest of humanity to not hesitate with the trigger when it comes right down to it. But her cunning can only carry her so far, so the fact that she's on the verge of losing a fight with a lean but unexpectedly strong agent with a face that says _raven_  isn't much of a surprise. 

What _is_ surprising is the single gunshot that ends his short-lived quest to carve her face up, and the half-smile Viridian gives her as he tosses the body aside and helps her up.  "All right?" he asks like it's nothing and maybe it is; a few extra bodies seem to add to the ambiance of her utterly destroyed home. 

The sound of an ongoing fight leads her to what's left of their living room, where she arrives just in time to watch Sameen shoot someone twice in the chest – she barely registers anything about him – before twisting the gun to fire once more into the soft, vulnerable midsection of a blonde agent. “Surprised Decima sent a swallow in for this. Or were they hoping I’d get rid of you for them?”

Cole chuckles, leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe, as Sameen grins up at him and it’s this tiny window into what Sameen is like, _really_ like, and Root is burning with this strange mix of jealousy and need because she wants more. More of this, this woman she does and doesn’t know. “Lovelace and I knocked over your partner back there, Invidia. Too bad you can’t fuck your way out of this one.”

To her surprise, the woman laughs, blood staining her lips as she tilts her head to look up at her. “Lovelace? Indigo got burned because she’s fucking _Lovelace?_ If you knew where your little girlfriend’s been – ”

She stops abruptly, cut off by the pistol in Cole’s hand. He shrugs at them both, unperturbed and practically fucking pristine compared to the two of them. “I always hated her.”

 

* * *

 

“ _This_ is your agency.”

“Well, we’re not exactly government sponsored.”

“Two people. In an abandoned subway station.”

It’s probably the familiarity of her second home that settles her back into herself, even as it puts Shaw off balance, the gentle hum of her world that lets Root sidle up next to her. “Pissed that two freelancers beat you so many times?”

“You wish.”

Root seems to sense her discomfort and moves off to stare at an array of screens with the quiet little nerd who introduced himself as Daizo but hasn’t said a word to anyone else since. Cole takes her place and she lets out an exasperated sigh because there’s no way he’s going to keep his mouth shut after everything that’s happened.

“So did you break the house when you tried to kill each other or when you decided to screw each others’ brains out? Oh wait, sorry, you’re married. When you _made love_.”

“If you ever say those words again, I will shoot you.” Shaw looks at him without turning her head, reluctantly adding, “Thanks. For coming.”

He nudges her with his elbow playfully. “You know I got your back.”

“I know.” Avoiding Cole’s eyes apparently means watching Root deep in discussion with Daizo instead, studying the intensity of her expression, the long lines of her body mottled with bruising and dried blood. He doesn’t miss the direction of her gaze, not that she thought he would.

“What are you going to do, Shaw?”

“Root says she has a plan.” She has no idea what, exactly, that plan is, but considering hers consisted of shooting everyone they send after them until she’s out of ammo, she’s willing to play.

“You know what I mean.”

She does. It’s hard not to, but it’s not until right then that she realizes she’s toying with the ring threaded around her neck that has somehow survived everything; it rolls smoothly around the tip of her finger, skin-warm and familiar. And Root is – Root is _hers_ , whatever that means.

“I’m probably not going to kill her, if that’s what you mean.”

“Could leave them here. We’d have better odds on our own,” he suggests and she reacts even though she knows him, knows exactly what he’s doing.

She doesn’t even bother to look at him. “I’m not going to do that.”

“Didn’t think so.”

 

* * *

 

It’s beyond late and she’s exhausted, but Shaw already knows she won’t be getting much sleep. For once, there’s too much rattling around inside her head to be able to pull off her usual trick of instantaneous unconsciousness – she’s off-balance and restless in spite of the bone-deep fatigue that’s trying to tug her towards the camp bed in the corner. Absently, she can hear Cole’s rumbling snore from the bunk he set up around the corner but not before giving her a wink that earned him a semi-affectionate eye-roll.

Daizo points her in the direction of an extensive first aid kit before leaving, and if her hands are a little less than steady as she patches herself up, that’s the exhaustion too.

She’s as clean as she’s going to get with the pathetic water pressure in the rigged shower being what it is and it would be so easy to just forget the kit and stretch out and pass the fuck out. Easy has never really been her thing; Root doesn’t seem to notice her presence at all until the first press of antiseptic to open flesh has her hissing and jerking away instinctively.

They do a lot of things on instinct and maybe it’s just time that they started following through.

Root’s fingers still on the keys. “You don’t have to do this.”

She tapes off the edge of the gauze bandage, pretty sure the shallow graze is her own handiwork. “Take your shirt off.”

It’s clinical and a little something extra as she probes each contusion carefully, listening for the sharp inhalations that tell her what Root tries to keep to herself. Her abdomen is an Impressionist mess of violet, angry and not nearly abstract enough to let her forget – it’s not _regret_ , exactly, that softens her touch as she checks for broken skin and fractured ribs, but she lingers anyway as if the press of her fingers can mend the burst vessels.

“It’s okay, Sameen. I’ve had worse.”

She wants to say _not from me_ but she’s not sure if it would be a lie and settles for, “You should get some sleep."

Root tugs her top back on before asking, “With you?”

It should be surprising, the almost flirtatiousness colouring her question, but the fiery spark that animates the woman is something she’d nearly forgotten and she can’t remember the last time she felt the familiar answering tug. Shaw shrugs, manoeuvering around her to kick her boots off and claim the right-hand side. “It’s that or the floor.”

For a while, there’s only the sound of tapping keys, and Shaw pulls the sheets more tightly around herself, inexplicably grumpy and Jesus _Christ_ why can’t she sleep? Then short, hesitant footsteps make their way to the left side and there’s the world’s most annoying pause before Root pulls back the thin blanket and slides in next to her.

She lies on her side, tentatively finding her alignment like she isn’t sure what she’s doing. It takes a moment for the shared heat to pool between them, and after a beat Root’s arm slides around the dip of her waist like fucking molasses, settling warm and slow into her skin. “Is this okay?” she asks.

Shaw closes her eyes and pretends to be asleep.

 

* * *

 

It takes an hour of arguments and sheer obstinacy, but they leave Cole and Daizo at the Hub when morning comes, because D _promises_ he can navigate them through to Control’s offices without being detected and because someone needs to take care of Bear if this batshit crazy plan goes to hell. Root _would_ think that she could talk her way out of this, and if what she says about Research is true, Shaw’s willing to give it a shot. Worst-case scenario, she’s heavily armed and the truck is loaded and rigged for remote detonation.

“If this doesn’t work – ”

“We blow the building up.”

“I’m sorry that it came to this,” she says, completely ignoring how much she doesn’t want to talk about this.

Shaw tries to focus on driving, on scanning every corner and side street for signs they’re being followed, but the expectation is heavy without anyone else with them to deflect and distract. “You’re the one who said it was always going to end up like this.”

 _We could still run_ , hovers on Root’s lips, and she’s tempted by the idea. She’s just learning what it feels like to not need to lie and if she’s honest, running is exactly what she wants to do because she’s not ready to give this up just yet. She isn’t ready to die either, as it turns out.

“Then don’t get shot.”

Apparently she’s at the place where she starts turning her internal monologue inside out. The words come tumbling, tripping off her tongue. “I just…don’t want to be the reason you lose everything.”

They veer across traffic to slam into the curb in a violent parallel park that threatens to tip the truck. Shaw wrenches her seat belt loose and leans over the gap to hook her fingers against the bend of her jaw and pull her close enough to feel her breath.

“I’m going to say this once. I could shoot you right now and dump your body at Control’s feet, or I could turn you over to the agency and let Interrogations take a crack at you. But I’m not going to do that. I chose to be here, Root. I’m choosing this. And if you want _out_ , then you need to decide. Right now.”

The smile breaking onto Root’s face threatens to be blinding and Shaw thinks she might actually be the most annoying woman to walk the earth because she really can’t figure out why she’s still here. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She lets her go then, swerving back into traffic to a hail of horns that fade and blend into the cacophony of the world outside. “Just try to not get killed in there.”

“When this is over, Sameen,” Root says, and she can hear the grin in her voice, “we are going to have so much fun together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This turned out to be way longer than I expected. Oops.


End file.
